


...Until the Earth is Free

by ecrituredelafangirl



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I changed the line-up a little, I like to make myself emotional over fictional character deaths, I love him, and Combeferre isn't a bad guy, but he forgot some important things on that Barricade, but these women are freaking strong, hope you don't mind, lots of dead people here, there be dead people here, there is lots of sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 13:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecrituredelafangirl/pseuds/ecrituredelafangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how they clean the streets, after the barricade.  This is how the women who loved them see the tomorrow that never came.  It's not pretty, it's not nice.  And it turns out Combeferre not only forgot his mother, but forgot his very understanding wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	...Until the Earth is Free

She was trying to stay calm. For the sake of the other women there. She was trying to keep a handle on her sanity, and not burst into tears. But it was hard - extraordinarily hard. Her husband was dead and she had - quite possibly - mopped his blood from the streets. 

 

Her hands were shaking. She hid them in the folds of her skirt. No one needed to know. But her husband was dead. 

She paused for a moment, having to physically halt to hold back the tears. What was she going to do without him? What was-

When she had first heard, she had cried into his pillow. She cried so hard that she couldn't feel her fingers. She couldn't feel her heart. When she could breathe again, she went into his study . She'd taken out the stupid dictionary he had spent so much time correcting. She ran her fingers over the words - painstakingly written in his messy, scrawling hand - and wished fervently that it was untrue. Wished that she could bring him back, or follow him. But she couldn't. She was alone. 

There was a baby. She knew there was a baby. She figured it would be here before the year was out. But she hadn't told him yet. She was going to tell him after...

She gripped her skirt in an anguished fist. He'd never know now. 

"Charlotte!" A voice called out and she snapped back to reality. There was work to be done. He'd never forgive her if she...

"Madame?" she responded and looked up to find the mother of...she couldn't think his name. She was angry with him - the leader of this revolution, this failed uprising. This anger had been tempered - by the sight of his body in the window, by his mother's tears when she had seen him as well - but it was still strong. She knew it was probably irrational, but in a way she felt it was his fault. 

"There's a woman on the barricade," she called. And Charlotte looked up to find a young woman - she couldn't be quite so old as Charlotte's twenty-two years - scaling what was left of the barricade. She was long-limbed, with olive-toned skin and dark hair loose and waving over her shoulders. She was wearing men's clothing. 

Charlotte stepped forward, unsure of when she had become leader - probably when the chief had been unmarried - and met the woman as she stepped onto the cobblestones. 

"Who are you?" Charlotte asked, unsure. How was one even meant to go about this?

"Is there anyone alive?" the woman asked in return. She staggered forward, her green eyes wide and wild. 

Everyone was silent. No one wanted to answer her. No one wanted to hear it said out loud. No one...

"There's one missing... Pontmercy, I think, but..." a young voice piped. The youngest who was there. A girl with bloodstained hands and dark curls. The young woman in the man's clothing looked pale at the news. She pressed her lips together into a line. 

"They... They're all... All of them are...?" she trailed off. Her eyes looked off to the side as they filled with tears. "All of them?" She looked back, meting Charlotte's eyes.

Charlotte gazed back. "Who are you looking for?" 

A shiver ran through the woman's body as, with shaking hands she pulled her hair back from her face. "Ah... Two-two men," she said faintly. "One was... young, sweet... he was...going to be....the other was older...unlucky..." She trailed off. She looked down. She was breathing heavily. Charlotte reached out and put her hand on her shoulder. The other woman flinched. 

"You're looking for Joly?" she said softly. The other woman sobbed audibly at the name. "And Lesgles?" She sobbed again, but nodded vigorously. Charlotte held out her hand. "Come with me."

The younger woman pressed her hand into hers and Charlotte led her from the foot of the barricade and into the Musain. To where they were all laid out, one body after another. His mother had insisted that the leader be taken from the window and laid with his brothers. There he was, at the head of the line, pale, eight bullets in his chest. Next, the man they found next to him, at his feel. The drunk. The cynic, Charlotte thought. Se didn;t know much about him, just that he had been right. 

She didn't look at the next two in the line... First, him - and she didn't want to see his face in death. Second, the young handsome one, Courfeyrac. He'd been to their house numerous times. She knew him. She liked him. She knew there were several women outside crying for him. 

Then, down the line. A girl... A young boy. O, God - he couldn't be more than ten years old, could he? What kind of monster would shoot a child? Then came the sweet poet... His body had been retrieved from the other side of the barricade. A caring hand had set a flower on his chest. Then came the nervous one, Joly, followed by the fan maker, Feuilly (she knew him well - constantly in the study, borrowing books), then the unlucky one, Lesgles, and finally the loud one, Bahorel. She hadnlt known many of them personally, but she knew all of them now. Pale. Cold. Dead. 

The woman beside her sobbed upon entry. She tore her hand from Charlotte's and turned her back to the men. She fell upon her knees, clutching at her sides, unable to control her anguish. She seemed almost unable to cry at the sight of the bodies. When she finally did make a sound, it was painful, nearly inhuman. She pitched forward slightly and another woman came forward and caught her, but she twisted from her grasp and put her head in her hands. 

She shook upon the floor for a moment before trying to form words. "Th-they-" she tried. She took a deep breath and tried again. "Th-they should be n-next to each other." She turned, craning her neck to see over her shoulder, presenting her red, tear-stained face to Charlotte. "Please. P-put then n-next to each oth-ther." 

Charlotte nodded and looked around. Two women instantly set about rearranging the bodies. Charlotte stepped forward and knelt upon the ground., next to the distraught woman. She put a hand on her shoulder and the woman looked up at her again. 

"What is your name?" she asked softly. The woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was visibly steeling herself, but her face broke down again and she slumped forward. 

"I'm called Musichetta," she said softly. She wiped her face on her sleeve - a sleeve of what Charlotte now recognized as one of Joly's overcoats. 

"Musichetta, have you come to help?" Charlotte asked, and the woman looked at her. Then her eyes flickered over to the line of bodies. Her face flashed pain. 

"I'll do whatever I can," she said faintly. Charlotte nodded. 

"Good. Now. First things first - we need to clear the barricade in its entirety. Are you up for that?" Musichetta nodded. "And then, after that, I wish you to come home with me." Musichetta looked up, "My husband is dead... I do not wish to remain here longer than necessary. And I don't want to go home alone. Will you agree to keep me company?" 

Musichetta's eyes were wide and tearful. "Your...husband?" she asked. 

"My husband," Charlotte said, meeting her gaze, willing herself not to cry. 

"Which one...?" Musichetta asked, looking around. The air in the room went still. Charlotte took a deep breath. this would be the first in a long line of admissions, she thought - for a widow always had to explain. 

"You probably knew him... They called him Combeferre. I... I called him Luc." She said it slowly. Her voice was strong at the beginning, but thinned out by the end, almost silent, barely a peep. She felt the tears in her eyes. She couldn't stop them from falling. She accepted Musichetta's embrace with a thought to how she'd never feel his again and then she was crying openly. 

"I will keep your company as long as you keep mine," Musichetta said softly. Charlotte found herself, to her utter bewilderment, laughing quietly in return. 

"That may be a very long time," she answered. Musichetta pulled back to look at her, tearful, but still cocking a sardonic eyebrow. 

"My schedule just opened up," she said. And for a moment her face succumbed to grief. Charlotte put a hand on her shoulder to steady her, and she clasped her wrist in both hands. 

"This... This is..." Musichetta tried, but words failed her. She met Charlotte's eyes for a moment, searching, but in the connection it became clear that Charlotte understood. The women embraced upon the floor once more before Charlotte pulled back, her face tearstained, but resolved. 

"To the barricade," she said firmly. And the women began to file from the room. Eventually only she and Musichetta were left. 

Musichetta stood. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. And then, after several steps, she dropped to her knees next to their bodies. She leaned over and placed a single kiss on Lesgles forehead, stroking his face tenderly with one hand. And then she turned to Joly. She pushed his hair back from his forehead. She ran a finger over his lips. Several tears fell onto his skin as she pressed her lips to his forehead. There was an anguished gasp and then she was back on her feet. She clutched at her sides. She muttered something about disease... He couldn't catch a cold where he was now. And then she stumbled from the room. 

And then Charlotte was alone. She took a deep breath to steel herself and then she did what she needed to do. She looked over, and then she crawled over, until her face hovered over his. And then she had to choke back her tears. He looked the same... As though he were merely sleeping. She didn't know what she had expected. That the bullets marring his body would have transformed him in some way? They hadn't. He looked just the same. It made the pain worse. 

She bushed his hair back. His skin was cold... She had to choke back a sob. She kissed his forehead gently. She kissed his lips for the last time. The last time... She gasped out a sob. She pulled back slightly, so that she wouldn't cry on him. She clutched at her sides, knowing what true anguish was. 

There was a hole in her chest. It was gaping and festering and...suddenly there was an arm around her. She clutched at it as Musichetta hugged her. 

"Charlotte. It... No it's not okay," she whispered. "But I'm here, okay? And I will be. Until you ask me to go away." And then Charlotte was truly crying in her arms. And she wasn't sure when she would stop. She wasn't sure she could. 

And she shivered. Because there was a long road ahead of her. But, as she began to stand, she realized that she wasn't getting anywhere by standing still. Musichetta stood up beside her. 

"We should go," she said quietly. And she turned around. "We have...work to do." And then she took Musichetta's hand and left the cafe. 

She only looked back once. And then she set herself straight on the path of recovery, knowing in her heart of hearts that she would never be the same. 

She had loved him... She still loved him more than anything... But she had work to do and, eventually, she had things to look forward to. 

When the baby came in December, it was a boy. When she named him Luc, Musichetta smiled. So did she. And it felt odd on her face... But it felt right.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this didn't make anyone too sad... But Combeferre is just wonderful and I saw something on Tumblr once about him having a wife in the movie or something? And that just spiraled out into this. I hope you like it.


End file.
